A prominent Fort Worth criminal defense attorney is seeking
additional information on a county serologist, who was disciplined by
the state's top forensic board for professional misconduct but was not
prosecuted.

The serologist, who resigned in March after a
supervisor discovered that he had fabricated test results for two
unopened rape kits, may have "committed a crime" in the lab of the
medical examiner's office, attorney Mark Daniel said.

He
"knowingly falsified forensic laboratory results," Daniel said, and
could be subject to a third-degree felony, such as making a false entry
in a government record.

Tarrant County District Attorney Joe Shannon's office said it hasn't pursued an indictment because no one has asked it to.

"No
defense attorney nor anyone else has presented a proposed criminal case
to this office," spokeswoman Melody McDonald said. "If that is done, we
will be happy to take a look."

The Tarrant County medical
examiner's office reported the incident to the Texas Forensic Science
Commission after the false reports were discovered. The serologist was
immediately suspended and soon resigned.

It was later discovered
that results of several rape kits had been falsified without testing.
Such misconduct is called "drylabbing."

As this was described at the Forensic Science Commission this was basically a case of laziness. The labworker sometimes didn't test rape kits, for example, when the offense report didn't include penetration, drawing conclusions without performing examinations or testing. OTOH, while it's another example of corroboration inflation as it regards the victim account, one wouldn't necessarily see those sort of shortcuts as a practice likely to suborn a false conviction. But you never know, I suppose, until somebody takes a closer look.

7 comments:

Across the county line, Dallas DA's office is happy to look into possible wrongful conviction cases, and sets up unit to do that. Tarrant County DA sits back and waits for formal request to look into troubling situation right under its nose ... is there a lesson here. For example, that Joe Shannon is too busy giving jobs to his old friends and enjoying the benefits of his position to do justice?

Your legal articles always make me to admire. Seriously, especially ones regarding criminal law. You are a good lawyer, aren’t you? I would hire you If I need services of criminal attorney. That is why you may submit your contacts to my attorney directory with smart descriptions of attorneys’ experience. Jus look at the category with Arkansas criminal attorneys http://attorney-online.info/dir/criminal/arkansas/386 If you know good lawyers (I am sure you do), they also can submit their contacts to this directory and write their legal news, articles and blog posts.

If Sharen Wilson was DA at the time, it would have been prosecuted. Richard Alpert was on the State Forensic Committee at the time. Alpert may have been the reasons why not prosecuted to not embarrass him on a state level. However, see this story about Alpert and comments: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2015/06/large-scale-police-testilying-alleged.html

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